Don Feder American Thinker Vladimir Putin isn’t the Easter Bunny. On the other hand, he isn’t Joseph Stalin. It takes a truly fevered imagination to see Russian forces in the Crimea as a prelude to Russian tanks rolling across Europe toward Berlin and Paris.

Putin is a power player who cares more about Russia’s national interests, and Russian minorities in his near abroad, than in that mythical force known as world opinion. Would that America had a president who cared more about our interests than in promoting globalism and the left’s social agenda. The Crimea’s population is 60% ethnic Russian. For most of the past 800 years, the Ukraine has been Russian. An independent Ukraine disappeared in the 12th century. It reappeared briefly after the Bolshevik Revolution, only to be crushed by the Red Army and not emerge again until the fall of the Soviet Union. All of this fuss about the “territorial integrity” of a state born yesterday. The Russian-backed government in Kiev came to power democratically, but was ousted by the Maidan mob. We’re told that the interim government is pro-Western and pro-EU. When Reagan was president, the expression pro-Western meant something. It meant pro-representative government, pro-human rights and pro-Western (Judeo-Christian) values. Today, it means a willingness to accept same-sex “marriage,” abortion on demand, an anti-religion ethos – the agenda of the EU’s cultural commissars – and the economic dictates of the Brussels bureaucracy. Putin doesn’t want to see the EU — and, possibly, NATO — on his doorstep. Do you blame him? If someone overthrew a democratically elected, pro-American government in Ottawa and replaced it with an interim regime hostile to our interests, that contained neo-Nazi elements and which immediately moved against English-speaking Canadians, it would irritate us too. It would, that is, if there was an American in the White House. But don’t I care about a possible Russian annexation of the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine (with its Russian-oriented, Orthodox population), conservatives who are still fighting the Cold War ask me? Not really. I’ll tell you what does concern me: Obama’s hollowing out of our military – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced plans to slash the army’s active-duty personnel by at least another 70,000. Some support aircraft and cruisers are also slated for mothballs. The Marine Corps will lose 8,000 of the few/the proud. In 2013, defense spending was 4% of GDP — taking us to pre-Pearl Harbor levels. The president doesn’t think we need a military, just a marker for drawing red lines.

Obama’s life style-friendly military – If Putin doesn’t take us seriously, is it any wonder? The headline in the March 2 Stars and Stripes beams: “Gay, lesbian troops perform in drag at Kadena Air Base” in Okinawa. The publication disclosed that the drag show was “in support of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered troops.” Doubtless, this will do much for the morale of the non-LGBT troops. But as then-Army Chief of Staff George W. Casey, Jr. said at the time of the Ft. Hood massacre (which the administration still refuses to call a terrorist incident), diversity is the New Action Army’s most important product. Perhaps we could deploy an elite unit, armed with vibrators, to the Crimea to counter Spetsnaz commandos. Muslims in the Obama White House – including Arif Alikhan (Deputy Executive Director for Policy in DHS), Mohamed Elibiary (Homeland Security Advisory Council), Rashad Hussain (Special Envoy to the deeply anti-Semitic Organization of the Islamic Conference), Imam Mohamed Magid (Obama’s Sharia Law advisor, on loan from the Islamic Society of North America, with its Brotherhood ties) and Eboo Patel (on the Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships). A Muslim who takes his religion seriously must put loyalty to Dar al-Islam above allegiance to an infidel state. The suicide pact Obama and Kerry are determined to force on Israel – Israel’s Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu arrived in the U.S. Monday to the administration’s threats. If Israel doesn’t participate in a negotiated surrender (leading to Jihadistan on its borders), Washington won’t be able to contain the “international fallout,” the White House warned. Unlike the Ukraine, Israel’s territorial integrity is in our national interest, as our only friend in a region with a lot of people determined to destroy us. Obama’s metastasizing autocracy – We fret about democracy in the Ukraine while Obama treats the Constitution as a series of suggestions. For the president, the three branches of government are him, his pen and his telephone. Putin is a strong man. Obama is a weak man (except when it comes to bullying our allies). Obama venerates multilateralism. Putin is willing to go it alone. Obama is committed to the entire LGBT agenda (including gay “marriage”). He’s also the only sitting president to address Planned Parenthood, such is his commitment to abortion without borders. Putin believes the foregoing is the road to national annihilation. Where does the threat to America lie?